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February 23, 2013

Obamadmin opens up government funded research

Nature - The US government said that publications from taxpayer-funded research should be made free to
read after a year’s delay – expanding a policy which until now has only
applied to biomedical science.

In a memo, John Holdren, the director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, told federal agencies to prepare plans to make their research results free to read within 12 months after publication.

“The Obama Administration is committed to the proposition that
citizens deserve easy access to the results of scientific research their
tax dollars have paid for,” the memo says. The OSTP also tells agencies
to maximise public access to non-classified scientific data from
research they fund.

The policy applies to all federal agencies that spend more than $100
million on research and development, and is likely to double the number
of articles made public each year. The US National Institutes of Health
has since 2008 required research to be publicly accessible after 12
months. ”This new policy call does not insist that every agency copy the
NIH approach exactly, [but] it does ensure that similar policies will
appear across government,” Holdren wrote today in a separate response to a petition
that had been launched in May 2012, urging the president to require
free access to scientific journal articles from publicly-funded
research. (That has gathered some 64,000 signatures.)

SAY IT AGAIN, SAM

PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM

Your editor has been a musician for many decades. He started the first band his Quaker school ever had and played drums with bands up until 1980 when he switched to stride piano. He had his own band until the mid-1990s and has played with the New Sunshine Jazz Band, Hill City Jazz Band, Not So Modern Jazz Band and the Phoenix Jazz Band.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

The Review is edited by Sam Smith, who covered Washington under nine presidents, has edited the Progressive Review for 49 years, wrote four books, been published in five anthologies, helped to start six organizations (including the DC Humanities Council, the national Green Party and the DC Statehood Party), was a plaintiff in three successful class action suits, served as a Coast Guard officer, and played in jazz bands for four decades.MORE